1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method a configuring a computer to include available options of a printer, and more particularly to a method of configuring a computer connected to the printer via a network to include the available printer options without having to manually reconfigure a printer driver. The present invention also relates to a computer program product and corresponding graphical user interface for configuring the computer to include the available printer options without having to manually select individual printer options.
2. Discussion of the Background
Many personal computers used at the home or office are directly connected to a printer, i.e., a one-to-one connection. For example, FIG. 1 illustrates a conventional set-up of a computer 2 and a printer 6 attached via a cable 4. The printer 6 includes a connection port 7 for attaching the cable 4 to the printer 6. Thus, a user using the computer 2 can select an item or other object to be printed on the printer 6.
When the printer 6 is first installed at the home or office, a printer driver corresponding to the printer 6 is generally supplied on a separate computer readable medium, such as a CD-ROM, and a user must install the printer driver onto the computer 2. The user must also configure the computer 2 to include any available printer options supplied with the printer 6. This is generally accomplished by manually selecting options from a Graphic User Interface (GUI) provided with the printer driver. For example, the GUI may list printer options, such as input trays, output trays, memory available, stapling devices, etc. A base model of the printer generally includes only standard printer options (e.g., one input tray, one output tray, and no extra memory). Thus, the user is required to purchase any desired additional options, such as extra input or output trays.
When the printer driver is loaded onto the computer, the corresponding GUI prompts the user for any additional printer options he or she may have purchased. Then, the user manually selects the additional printer options from the list of options displayed on the GUI. Alternatively, the user may retrieve the available printer options by connecting the printer 6 to a local printer port of the computer 2 and then query a language monitor which enables bidirectional communication between the printer 6 and the computer 2. A language monitor is a software module which uses, for example, page-description language, such as Postscript, PJL, etc., to retrieve the available printer options.
FIG. 2 illustrates a block diagram of a conventional application 10 interfacing the printer 6. The conventional application 10 is hosted on an operating system 14 resident on the computer 2. A user may retrieve the options available with the printer 6 using the application 10, a printer driver 12 and a language monitor 13. The printer driver 12 and language monitor 13 are printer and operating system specific software interfaces. The operating system 14 sends signals in accordance with instructions from the printer driver 12 and language monitor 13 to the local port 18 via a connection 8, thus placing signals corresponding the printer driver 12 and language monitor 13 on the cable 4 connected to a parallel port 9 of the printer 6. That is, via the application 10 and printer driver 12, the printer driver 12 may query the language monitor 13 for the available printer options, and the language monitor 13 will retrieve this information from the printer 6 via the local port 18 and cable 4. The printer driver 12 then updates the list of available printer options displayed on the GUI. However, the printer 6 must be connected to the local port of the computer 2 to retrieve the available printer options using the language monitor 13.
Increasingly, a plurality of printers and computers are connected to a network, such as a Local Area Network (LAN). For example, FIG. 3 illustrates a plurality of computers 2 and printers 6 connected to each other via a network 5. The computers 2 and printers 6 illustrated in FIG. 3 are identified by the same reference numeral, however, the network may include many different computers and printers connected together. Also shown is a centralized computer 3, used by a system administrator, for example. The centralized computer 3 generally includes a network manager and/or a printer manager, such as an IBM Network Printer Manager sold under the trademark NPM, or a Hewlett Packard (HP) printer administrator sold under the trademark HP JET ADMIN. The printer manager is used by the system administrator of the network 5 to control, modify, monitor, etc., the plurality of printers 6 connected to the network 5.
In addition, the printers 6 and/or computers 2 connected via the network 5 may be added or removed on a regular basis. Thus, when a new printer is added, for example, the computer(s) 2 using that printer have to be reconfigured to use the new printer. To accomplish this, the system administrator first installs a printer driver (corresponding to the newly added printer) on the computer(s). Then, using HP JETADMIN on the centralized computer 3, for example, the system administrator manually views the available options for that printer. This is a time consuming and tedious process, because the system administrator must know beforehand what printer options are available with the particular printer (i.e., by looking at the printer or reading a user's manual, for example). Further, the end user of the computer does not generally have access to HP JETADMIN, for example, on their computer, and thus is unable to configure his or her printer without support from the system administrator. Therefore, the user must wait for an available system administrator.